"You—you discharge him? It's impossible. You have no right," blustered your Hibernian auxiliary.
"Haven't I the right?" I answered. "Well, perhaps not." Then I told him one of my stock stories, a true tale of Illinois in the early days. A newly appointed Justice of the Peace had as his first case a charge of horse stealing. The accused man's guilt was palpable enough and there were grounds for belief that a recent epidemic of this sort of thieving was to be attributed to him. At all events the J. P. decided that it was no case for half way measures and that he would try it himself without wasting time getting together a jury. In about fifteen minutes he found the prisoner guilty and ordered the constable to get the nearest available rope and hang the condemned directly. The horse thief had a friend within hearing, who, when he saw how things were going, went in hot haste after the only lawyer the settlement boasted. The lawyer, inspired by a liberal retainer, galloped up in hot haste and sought the Justice of the Peace.
"Your honor," he exclaimed at the close of a fervent plea, "you have no jurisdiction or power to condemn the prisoner to death. You can only hold him for a higher court. You cannot hang him."
"Wa-al," said the justice, aiming a quid of tobacco at the window, "you seem to know a lot about the law an' I'm obleeged to you. But as to hanging this man, if you'll look out that thar window p'raps you'll change your mind as to whether I kin do it or not." And he pointed calmly to a most potent argument, a body swinging from the end of a limb of a neighboring tree.
"I may not have the right," I added to Milligan, "to fire Welch, but, by George, I had the power, for he's gone."
The fact is—I didn't tell Milligan, for I wouldn't give him the satisfaction—I happened to learn that Welch was giving the "House" the double cross. For half a dozen years he's been running a sort of illicit still for lard and been selling it on the quiet to our customers. As our business has grown rapidly and as his sales were but a flea bite, it was not noticed until I probed his secret.
If it hadn't been for my affection for exercise about a green table I shouldn't have spoilt Welch's sport.
Old Si Higginbotham came to town last week and I met him one evening when he was pretty well steam-heated. He insisted on trying to tear up the cloth with a cue and, for the trade's sake, I gave him his head. The more games we played—with lubricants—the mellower he became, and before I could get him to bed he had wept the color completely out of the shoulder of my coat. Incidentally he blurted out about Mr. Welch's neat side line, and after I had verified the facts I taxed him with it.
As I do not want to interfere too much in the business during your absence, I have appointed no successor to my former place as assistant manager of the lard department, but am holding down both salaries. There is really no need of an assistant. The only duty of the manager is to boss the assistant and you ought to hear me order myself around.